A3 3.2 camchain,replace vvt at the same time ?

[audi4me]

Hello , nice to be a member of your busy forum,looks good

Is it worth replacing the variable valve timing unit at the same time as the stretched camchain as i heard both are engine out jobs ,is the vvt unit likely to fail over time, its done 88000 and i intend to keep it for a good while yet.

 

[NHN]

Welcome to the forum.

TBH I didnt even know 3.2 was vvt, but I've not heard of this being neccessary tbh mate & been on here a while, ideally need to see the costs associated & then judge from this, as sometimes as you know it would be worth doing for a small extra expense, given that areas already out as such.

 

[audi4me]

The vvt unit is about £500 i think,if they don't have a reputation for failing then i'll leave it ....

 

[RobinA3]

You won't need to change the units, there are 2 VVT units - one for the inlet cam and one for the exh cam, i have not heard of any failures with the units themselves both on the R32 or the A3 and also they are very similar units to the Bentley W12 engine and i've not come across any failures of these either (i'm an engine development engineer at Bentley).

When i changed the chains on the wife's R32 i just did the chains and guides.

 

[moag]

I wasnt aware that the camchain itself needed changed on these engines? Do audi not state that its a lifetime part?

 

[NHN]

(i'm an engine development engineer at Bentley).

Impressive, you kept that quiet

Do audi not state that its a lifetime part?

You know better than to believe that lol, it was designed to be, but I think a design flaw may have been responsible.

 

[moag]

You know better than to believe that lol, it was designed to be, but I think a design flaw may have been responsible.

Very true man!

 

[RobinA3]

Chains are designed to be lifetime however it's a known issue on the Mk4 R32 engine which shares the same engine with the A3 and TT. VW know that this is a problem as they issued a bulletin in the US about it but not over here.

If you buy new chains from Vw the part number has changed and has been superseded which confirms that the design of the chains have been changed - not sure what the changes are (I could find out at work) but i suspect it will be in the lines of material and tolerance changes.